Shattering the Kaleidoscopic West

Thus, the ultimate shattering of the kaleidoscopic West, and of America in particular, comes from religious conflict. This appears more obviously in the form of clashes with Islam—real and imagined—but the greatest threat is not external but internal, in the conflict between Christianity and liberal ideology, which Russell Kirk identified as pseudo-religion.

Christianity, per Eliot, affords the greatest possibilities for diversity within a civilization. That diversity is not transferable to other religions, however, nor does it long survive without violence when Christianity becomes infected with ideology, the “half-truths” of modern heresies.